Destination Armley- a Hub of Creativity!
Steph Foley writes about the new Town Street Hub opening tomorrow …
Poor Armley gets a lot of bad press. Street drinking, high levels of unemployment, several payday loan shops and bookies, you’d be forgiven for not wanting to spend too much time there.
But you’d be wrong because there is a community wanting to make Armley a hub of culture and excitement, turning it into one of the go to destinations in Leeds. Organisations such as Interplay with their fantastic Spit Nolan cart racing last weekend, and the always exciting Armley Mills with a brand new gardening project, not to mention our very own Culture Vultures and the I Love West Leeds festival, all come from Armley. And this week Healthy Living Network Leeds, a charity based in Armley aimed at tackling health inequalities and empowering communities to make positive changes, are opening a brand new shiny community Hub in the old Stradbrokes solicitors’ shop at the bottom of Chapel Lane, just off Town Street.
The Town Street Hub is the result of two years of hard work, sweat and tears, starting with community consultations, and trawling the streets of Armley with clipboards and questionnaires to find out what the residents wanted to see in the area – an overwhelming majority wanted somewhere to go that offered fun, low-cost or free activities to enjoy and a wide range of experiences from gaining skills for the job market, learning a new craft or getting a decent cup of coffee!
Funding bid after funding bid was written and quite often this involved burning the midnight oil to meet deadlines. New relationships were made and strengthened – we have a steering group for the Hub made up of local residents, Council staff, other voluntary organisations – and finally we are ready to open the (new shiny blue) doors to the public.
Thursday 11th July is the date you need to put in your diaries to come down and see what the Hub can offer. We have taster workshops of the kinds of activities happening there – crafts, cookery, gardening- and there will be a range of delicious home baked cakes to sample, all baked by our super team of volunteers. You can even make penguins out of olives!
There will be a team of Healthy Living Network staff and volunteers there to answer any questions you may have, take your suggestions for future activities and tell you all about the plans for the next couple of months including opportunities for volunteering and learning. Just a small selection of the activities we have planned includes craft clubs, baking clubs, a volunteering course to gain a variety of work experience, tea parties for older people, guerilla gardening, monthly markets and edible bed planting. Our very own Get Fresh! Greengrocer, Dave, will be setting up shop every Wednesday and Thursday to fill the gap left by Dyson’s fruit and veg shop and selling affordable great quality fresh ingredients at quantities to suit you (no more buying kilos of carrots for one person!)
We have had tons of support for this so far and a huge thanks (and a giant slice of cake on Thursday!) go to Skill Will UK for matching us with fantastic businesses who have designed our logos (Rushfirth Creative) and done our building work (Lee Marsden at MWK Group LLP) Also many thanks to Geldards who let us paint their walls. We have also been supported by the fabulous Leeds Twelve. And of course none of this would have been possible without the support of our wonderful team of volunteers.
The Hub is available for all of the West Leeds community- if you have any skills or services to offer and want to get involved just come down and chat to us on Thursday or send us an email, tweet or facebook message. Plans for the future involve a huge community gardening project called “Eat the Street”, supper clubs, shelves selling locally produced crafts and produce in both the Hub and other shops in Armley, guerrilla knitting, festivals…..the possibilities are endless- we want to make Armley the best place to be and we need your help!
